Chailey Parish Magazine notes in October 1914 that Archibald Wright is an officer serving his King and Country. He was the son of Joseph Robert Wright of Ades, Cinder Hill and is noted in Kelly’s Directory for Sussex 1915 as a private resident living at the Ades mansion.
Archibald was a career soldier who arrived overseas on 16th August 1914 and was thus "an Old Contemptible" entitled to the 1914 Star and clasp. In October 1915 (when it started publishing more than just name details), Chailey Parish Magazine noted that he was serving with the 4th (Royal Irish)Dragoon Guards and had already been wounded twice –at Messines on 1st November 1914 and again near Ypres on 24th May 1915. It was this regiment, of course, which fired the first shots by the British Army in the First World War.
In November 1915, the parish magazine notes that Captain Wright has since returned to active service. In November 1917 he was mentioned in despatches and his details appear monthly up to and including the final published roll call in July 1919.
In This and That in Chailey and Barcombe by the late Edwin Matthias, reference is made to Captain Wright after the war, driving around Chailey in “a lovely white American Steam Car”.
Archibald's heavily annotated medal index card is reproduced on this post courtesy of Ancestry. It records that he latterly served as an acting major with the 24th machine Gun Squadron and subsequently served in Afghanistan in 1919 thus earning entitlement to the India General Service Medal with the Afghan clasp.
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